How I Cured My Seasonal Allergies

I used to have bad seasonal and environmental allergies. Emphasis on the words used to, because I don’t anymore. I remember as a little girl going to camp at the local humane society where I got to interact with the shelter animals. I loved that camp so much but it was almost unbearable for me to be there because of my allergies. Within a short period of time being in the shelter I would develop congestion, runny nose, swollen, watery, itchy eyes and intense fatigue. At times it felt impossible to keep my eyes open, all because of my allergies. These allergy symptoms would repeat every spring and summer, and anytime I was around animals.

As happens so often for people with environmental allergies, I kept having to use stronger and stronger medications as I built up a tolerance to the ones I had used before. In college my allergies worsened and it got to the point where I was having to take over-the-counter allergy medication every single day in spring and early summer. The year after I graduated college my allergies worsened even more and the over-the-counter medication no longer relieved me of my symptoms. Then I had to move onto the stronger version of my allergy medicine that you have to ask for from behind the counter at the pharmacy. And it still didn’t help that much. My allergies made my daytimes hard to enjoy and my nighttimes restless and sleepless.

So, I sought help from my doctor. We discussed my symptoms, what medications I had already taken, and what my options were. She told me that my best option was strong, daily prescription allergy medication to manage my symptoms. But something didn’t feel right to me after that appointment. My best and only option was to take a very strong medication, that comes with its own slew of side effects, every single day for the rest of my life?!

And then, something *clicked* and my whole perspective shifted. I was an anthropology and evolution buff in college, and now that I was questioning what to do about my allergies, I realized from an evolutionary perspective it doesn’t make much sense that humans would evolve through natural selection to be allergic to our normal surroundings. I realized it made absolutely no sense that I would need a very strong medication each and everyday to just be in this world. The idea that I needed medication to just comfortably breathe the air around me all of a sudden seemed downright illogical. I wasn’t willing to accept this as a reality. While it does make sense that actual pollutants would cause allergies in healthy people, the fact that I needed to rely on a strong pill to literally just be around natural things like trees, flowers, grass, animals, and dust suddenly seemed absolutely flawed.

I started to think that maybe, as opposed to this concept that there is something inherently wrong with all allergy sufferers that causes us to permanently be unable to tolerate the environment around us, perhaps something within me or something I was doing or something I was exposed to was causing the allergies….causing my body to react in a heightened manner to environmental stimulants that in reality are natural and normal and shouldn’t be making me sick. And if I could treat the cause, instead of just covering up my symptoms with medication, I might be able to manage my allergies once and for all.

So, I chose not to fill that prescription from my doctor and go a different route. I decided to try something completely foreign to me…homeopathy.

Before I got to this point, in my own naiveté, I thought homeopathy was a ridiculous, made up form of medicine that didn’t warrant any respect. But the truth was, I didn’t know a single thing about homeopathy, except that it was different. And because of that, just because it was different from the Western medicine I knew, I had always written it off. But now at this point, I was so disenchanted with my Western medicine doctor’s treatment plan, and so determined that I did not need to be dependent on allergy medicine to just BE in the world, that I decided to give homeopathy a try. (Which to our own detriment, is so common for us humans to do, wait until we are desperate to try something new. 🙁 ) I didn’t know how homeopathy worked or what to expect. I just knew that it couldn’t do any harm…and I was desperate. So I gave it a shot.

I reached out to homeopath Sandra Jones, of Sandra Jones Healing, and told her the dilemma I was faced with. She explained that homeopathy is often very successful at treating allergies. She was going treat me holistically and treat the root (or the cause) of my allergies, not just the symptoms. Here is how she describes homeopathy in her own words:

Homeopathy is a type of natural therapy. It is a very detailed system of healing based on stimulating the body’s innate healing power (immune system) so that all physiological systems function at their best.  Unlike allopathy (what we call modern medicine), which believes that disease affects everyone the same; homeopathy treats individuals and not disease.

We need individualized medicine. Homeopathy helps to initiate the process by which the person heals themselves and therefore enables the body to restore/return to a healthy balance and a sense of well being. Since homeopathy is used to assist people rather than to treat illness, anyone can benefit from homeopathic care.

And let me tell you, seeking out homeopathic treatment for my allergies was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The results have been beyond anything I even expected. It’s been three years since I first sought homeopathic treatment and I have been 99% allergy free ever since. I had only one day, when I first moved to NYC in the spring and I was stressed to the max, that I felt the familiar twinge of my old allergy symptoms. Which makes sense from a holistic perspective of health, allergic reactions should not be a normal baseline, instead allergies can be aggravated when we are highly stressed, or off balance. Which I certainly was feeling when I first moved here. And that has been it in an entire three years. No days fighting with congestion, runny noses, itchy eyes or fighting to keep my eyes open simply because of the air I breathe on a beautiful spring or summer day.

And it’s so interesting how life often brings things full circle for us. Now in my late twenties, I volunteer at an animal shelter and the environmental allergens there have zero effect on me. Cats used to trigger my allergies the most and now I can easily work in the cat room without any issues. My eyes don’t water at all. I don’t get stuffy one single bit. Never need to blow my nose. Nothing. Which is an incredible transformation from the little girl who could barely function in a shelter setting because of such bad allergies. Sometimes I will be standing in the shelter, having been there for hours, and be struck with a thought of how impossible this situation would have been for me in years past. And I just smile at how much better things are now and how homeopathy truly offered me a cure from my terrible allergies, which Western medicine told me were incurable. I’m comfortable and able to enjoy my work at the shelter, with my past allergies just serving as a memory of how opening myself up to new perspectives and new ways of looking at things, has changed my life for the better.

And, in addition to homeopathy, my shift to a plant-based diet has complemented and supported my homeopathic treatments and helped me to create and maintain even better health and more comfortable living than before.

So my advice to you today is: Be open to new possibilities. New treatments. New ways of looking at things. Because we as humans so often wait until we are desperate to open ourselves up to new, more holistic possibilities, when in reality they are there all along, waiting to offer us safer, and often better ways of healing.

P.S. Thanks to my Mom who always encouraged me to be open to alternative treatments and to my friend Caryn for recommending Sandra Jones Healing to me. If you’re interested in seeking out homeopathic treatment from Sandra Jones Healing, she is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and you can find her contact information, here.